Purchasing Manager

Company Description

Brody Chemical, founded in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1975, has grown from a local operation to a broad-based organization with a sales force covering more than half of the United States. The company manufactures a complete line of sanitation, institutional, industrial, and maintenance chemicals for professional use, offering over 600 products across automotive, floor care, grounds, car washing, laundry, pool and spa, restaurant, and food service categories.

Brody Chemical serves more than 50,000 customers in diverse industries, including hospitality, commercial real estate, automotive, manufacturing, municipalities, and food service. Its success is rooted in strict quality control standards, high-quality products, superior personal service, and professional technical support provided by trained representatives.

The Purchasing Manager leads all purchasing and raw material inventory planning for the company, reporting directly to the VP of Operations and supervising one Buyer. This role establishes supplier relationships and serves as a representative of the company when negotiating contracts and building supplier trust, and manages all spend within daily operations and special projects. The Purchasing Manager continually works to optimize the supply chain by internally owning and improving purchasing policies, processes, and inventory planning, and externally negotiating the best raw material costs and freight rates.

This is a full-time, on-site position, Monday through Friday, at our West Valley City, Utah facility.

• Supervise, develop, and prioritize the workload of the department Buyer.
• Develop and improve profitable purchasing and freight strategies, including hazmat/DOT-regulated shipments.
• Own raw material inventory planning: set and maintain Min/Max/Reorder Point levels and plan seasonal pre-season purchases and storage allocation (e.g., ice melt).
• Research, evaluate, and qualify potential new suppliers, including required documentation (SDS, CoA, regulatory).
• Create and maintain good relationships with suppliers while employing effective negotiation tactics.
• Protect vendor and customer confidentiality in all communications, including private-label relationships where the company is the intermediary, in accordance with company communication policy.
• Enforce the Supplier Pricing Policy: review and challenge cost increases, require documented market or supplier justification, and maintain records of cost-change reasoning for future reference.
• Report purchase price variance (PPV) and cost changes in the bi-weekly NPD/PPV meeting, ranked from highest to lowest financial impact, including business impact and market or supplier reasoning.
• Maintain a high level of proactive communication between sales and operations; provide status updates and follow-up without being prompted.
• Update Management timely on raw material, equipment, and freight rate increases and decreases.
• Develop and manage the external RFQ process with vendors; respond timely to internal RFQs from the organization.
• Maintain the purchasing backorder report: update ship dates and backorder reasons for all orders flagged to purchasing.
• Provide weekly purchasing metrics, including PPV, supplier on-time delivery, freight cost as a percentage of COGS, and inventory turns and on-hand inventory.
• Attend weekly meetings to report department changes, updates, and pricing by product/vendor.
• Develop and maintain a tracking system for all cost savings projects and results.
• Manage sourcing, costing, and supplier feasibility within the new product development (NPD) process.
• Track actual spend against budget monthly.
• Update Net Suite timely for changes in:

• Supplier lead times

• Highly effective, proactive communication and comprehension skills, verbal and written; initiates follow-up and status updates without being prompted.
• Demonstrated ownership and initiative: identifies and improves processes, policies, and problem areas without waiting for direction.
• Strong analytical skills: landed cost analysis, PPV, root cause analysis, and clearly reasoned recommendations; advanced Excel (pivot tables, lookups) and ERP reporting.
• Ability to organize and manage workload using task and project management tools, prioritize effectively, and meet time-sensitive deadlines.
• Sound judgment handling confidential vendor, customer, formula, and pricing information.
• Ability to represent the company in a professional manner.

• Bachelor’s degree from a four-year College or University or equivalent experience required.
• Minimum 5 years related work experience with knowledge of materials purchasing required; supervisory experience preferred.
• Relevant chemical industry and Net Suite experience preferred.

Full-time, on-site Monday through Friday at our West Valley City, Utah facility.